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CIVIL LIBERTY IN IRELAND
Under Martial Law and otherwise.
"Martial Law" because of bitter experiences, means very little to an Irishman and its proclamation in December last excited little interest even in the proclaimed districts.
Five-sixths of the whole population of Ireland had been under military rule for nearly five years.
Civil liberty had vanished; nor could the people imagine that anything worse could befall them under a "law" called martial than under a law which for a year past had permitted the British Forces to commit with impunity excesses unknown in civilised war; to burn cities, villages, factories, farms; to murder, flog and terrorise as they pleased.
Now for a moment, dismiss "martial law" from your minds — what is the law under which all Ireland lives? Nearly the whole of it is now contained in one Act, the Restoration of Order Act of August last, which put some final finishing touches to the Defence of the Realm Act. How does an Irish citizen stand under this Act?
ARREST AND DEPORTATION.
Under Regulation No. 14B. a man may be arrested without warrant and transported at five minutes notice to a distant English prison and kept there, if need be, to the end of his life, without knowing why, and without charge or trial. No writ of Habeas Corpus can touch him.
Under this one regulation the whole population of Ireland can legally be deported from its shores. Nor is it a dead letter. It has been in constant use for several years and is now (January, 1921), being used on an enormous scale, as a means of removing local and central leaders of national opinion — Urban and Rural Councillors, Members of Parliament, Merchants, Labour Leaders, Solicitors — as well as a host of humbler people holding Republican views. Some 1,500 persons are now in prison under it, and the number grows every day.
These people are supposed to be treated as prisoners of war — but what of ordinary imprisonment when there is evidence for a conviction?
TRIAL BY COURT MARTIAL.
First, it must be understood that all the criminal law, both for political and ordinary crimes, is now under the control of Soldiers (Reg. 68). A man may be tried by court martial not only for an ambush or a seditious speech, but for trespass, stealing, or murder. Courts martial are a travesty of justice, even if they sit in public. In Ireland they can sit in secret and are not bound to publish their proceedings. On January 14th, it was announced that a Cork court martial had sentenced 60 men to five years penal servitude. On what charge and on what evidence? Nobody knows!
Evidence may be extorted by duress (Reg. 75). A witness, even a child, may be forced to attend and forced to answer questions under pain of six months in gaol. A mother may be compelled thus to incriminate her son on a capital charge.
[P.T.O.

CIVIL LIBERTY IN IRELAND
Under Martial Law and otherwise.
"Martial Law" because of bitter experiences, means very little to an Irishman and its proclamation in December last excited little interest even in the proclaimed districts.
Five-sixths of the whole population of Ireland had been under military rule for nearly five years.
Civil liberty had vanished; nor could the people imagine that anything worse could befall them under a "law" called martial than under a law which for a year past had permitted the British Forces to commit with impunity excesses unknown in civilised war; to burn cities, villages, factories, farms; to murder, flog and terrorise as they pleased.
Now for a moment, dismiss "martial law" from your minds — what is the law under which all Ireland lives? Nearly the whole of it is now contained in one Act, the Restoration of Order Act of August last, which put some final finishing touches to the Defence of the Realm Act. How does an Irish citizen stand under this Act?
ARREST AND DEPORTATION.
Under Regulation No. 14B. a man may be arrested without warrant and transported at five minutes notice to a distant English prison and kept there, if need be, to the end of his life, without knowing why, and without charge or trial. No writ of Habeas Corpus can touch him.
Under this one regulation the whole population of Ireland can legally be deported from its shores. Nor is it a dead letter. It has been in constant use for several years and is now (January, 1921), being used on an enormous scale, as a means of removing local and central leaders of national opinion — Urban and Rural Councillors, Members of Parliament, Merchants, Labour Leaders, Solicitors — as well as a host of humbler people holding Republican views. Some 1,500 persons are now in prison under it, and the number grows every day.
These people are supposed to be treated as prisoners of war — but what of ordinary imprisonment when there is evidence for a conviction?
TRIAL BY COURT MARTIAL.
First, it must be understood that all the criminal law, both for political and ordinary crimes, is now under the control of Soldiers (Reg. 68). A man may be tried by court martial not only for an ambush or a seditious speech, but for trespass, stealing, or murder. Courts martial are a travesty of justice, even if they sit in public. In Ireland they can sit in secret and are not bound to publish their proceedings. On January 14th, it was announced that a Cork court martial had sentenced 60 men to five years penal servitude. On what charge and on what evidence? Nobody knows!
Evidence may be extorted by duress (Reg. 75). A witness, even a child, may be forced to attend and forced to answer questions under pain of six months in gaol. A mother may be compelled thus to incriminate her son on a capital charge.
[P.T.O.